


What Lies Below

by thunderbottle



Series: Blessed are the Peacemakers [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Blind Character, Childhood Trauma, Dadmiral Christopher Pike, Found Family, Gen, Genius James T. Kirk, Rescue, Self-Sacrifice, Service Dogs, Survival, Tarsus IV, Tommy Leighton has a knife...who gave this 12 y/o a knife, Young James T. Kirk, hooo boy, more tags will be added, oh this'll be a fun one huh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbottle/pseuds/thunderbottle
Summary: TheEnterprisereceives a cryptic distress signal and Helm Officer Christopher Pike knows better than to hope it was a mistake. Whatever they find on Tarsus IV, he's not looking forward to it.(EDIT: i'm leaving this fic on pause for a bit until i feel more solid with writing characterization in the star trek universe.)
Relationships: Crew of the Starship Enterprise & James T. Kirk, James T. Kirk & Christopher Pike, James T. Kirk & Tarsus IV Survivor(s), Number One & Christopher Pike
Series: Blessed are the Peacemakers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832104
Comments: 38
Kudos: 145





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay here is a short list of the things i will be changing/editing about the canon to make this story more interesting: Robert April, potentially the first captain of the enterprise, is April Roberts. There aren't enough canon female or nonbinary characters so i will be Taking Liberties. I'm also ignoring the technical timeline of tos (but only a bit, shush.) I'm not sure if Number One was on the enterprise at all before working with pike but i love her so i'm putting her in this. i also think she's a science officer but i wanted to do communications stuff so shut up!!! i am also going to run with a lot of the meager information we are given about tarsus so it might break a bit with fanfic-typical depictions of tarsus. I also have no idea how radios work so just roll with it okay??? this will have a happy ending!!!

Stars were flying past the viewscreen faster than Pike could track them. He watched them idly, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t just ignoring the rest of the bridge crew. It had been a long shift already and all he wanted to do was curl up in his quarters and not have to think about anything for a little while. 

This was technically his third mission as the freshly promoted helm officer, but it didn’t feel too different from being holed up with the rest of the pilots on board. He was a lot more tired and stressed, but he didn’t dwell on it.

In any case, they were on route back to Earth from a mission off in the far-flung reaches of the galaxy. Even at maximum warp, it was going to take them a few days to get back to the solar system. Unfortunately for Pike, the _Enterprise_ had been damaged just enough that she drifted in warp and her course had to be corrected every few minutes. He sighed, shifted in his seat for the hundredth time that shift, and stared at the stars. 

“Pike.”

He turned in his chair. “Yes, Captain?”

April Roberts smiled kindly at him. She had been captain long before he had been stationed on the _Enterprise_ but the years of experience, stress, and long-haul missions only seemed to give her an aura of power. The crew followed her without question and Pike did the same. “You’ve been at the helm for eight hours. Take a break.” 

He sighed. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Don’t be so dramatic, you’ll be right back in that chair in the morning. Where would we be without our best pilot?” 

“Halfway into the nebula, if I remember correctly.” Roberts laughed at that and waved him towards the turbolift.

“Get out of here, kid. Ka’hala, take the helm.” 

Pike stood and cracked his back before going to walk out of the bridge. Before going to the turbolift, he stopped to check on Number One who was still hunched over her communications equipment as she had been the last time he had looked. 

“One, d’you want to-”

Before he could ask her to get dinner with him, she started to shush him loudly. “Shut up, I found something.” She sounded more frantic than usual, which was to say that she sounded frantic at all. 

“Is something wrong?” He wasn’t sure whether to be worried or intrigued. 

“I don’t know. Do you recognize any of this?” She shoved a PADD towards him without looking, too busy fiddling with her equipment to make sure he had a good grip on it before letting go. As a result, it nearly fell to the floor before he fumbled it against his leg. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see on the screen, but a series of visualized radio waves on an archaic frequency was not it. “Uh…”

“I received one message on that frequency and it’s been appearing randomly over the last few hours. I think I can pinpoint where it’s coming from but I can’t translate it somehow.”

Pike looked back at the PADD and scanned through a few of the computer’s analyses of the transmission. None of it seemed like anything he could understand better than One herself, though. His eyes caught on the frequency itself, something about it looked familiar. 

“What do you mean by ‘archaic’?”

Number One hummed at him, distracted.

“One, how is the frequency archaic?” He bumped her shoulder lightly.

“Hm? Oh. It’s one of the earliest radio frequencies that Starfleet used. It was best for long-distance transmissions up until we abandoned the use of radio waves entirely.”

“What else was it used for, other than long-distance?”

“I’m not sure. Computer, what was the purpose of radio frequency 1456 megahertz? Narrow by ‘Starfleet history’.” 

The computer rattled on for a moment, mostly repeating what Number One had mentioned previously. They had both begun to tune it out until the last sentence.

“Second definition: 1456 megahertz used as distress signal frequency for earth colonies in the early 22nd century. Broaden search?”

One froze, and glanced at the computer before snatching the PADD back from him. 

“ _Shit_. Captain Roberts, I believe we’re being sent a distress signal.” 

April turned towards them, concern playing across her expression. One had her hands busy, apparently going off on an idea with the data that she had, while she explained the transmission and its potential significance.

“I’m not sure why anyone would use this frequency specifically, as there are much more accessible ways of sending distress signals, but it’s troubling regardless.”

“Have you managed to translate it?”

“Not quite, but I believe I could in a matter of minutes.” 

“For now, focus on finding the location. If whoever sent it is capable of hailing a starship, it’s worth checking on.”

“Understood, ma’am.” One returned to her station in a rush, most of the bridge crew watching her work with various levels of worry and apprehension. Pike sat in one of the spare chairs near her equipment, too invested to leave her to it. 

“Anything I can help with?” One nodded and handed the PADD back to him, now with the screen covered in various 3-dimensional star charts. 

“As I narrow down the transmission’s point of origin, it’ll show up on the charts I’ve loaded. Let me know when there is only one colonized or otherwise inhabited planet remaining in the vicinity.” 

They worked in silence for a few minutes. This was the most interesting situation they had been in for a few days, which was either a good or bad thing depending on how ‘interesting’ was defined by the individual crew member. Pike was aware enough of the _Enterprise_ ’s bad luck that he was starting to get worried. 

Finally, One’s sphere of possibility narrowed onto a dual-star system with 5 planets. Only one of them, the fourth planet from the center, had a colony. “Got it! Tarsus IV, I think. It’s a farming colony, about 30 years of habitation, 8205 colonists at last count, and its latest contact with Earth was, um...9 months ago.”

“Captain, we found it!” 

Roberts stood and joined them. “How bad does it look?” 

“9 months no contacts, over eight thousand colonists. I’ll work on translating the transmission.” 

“9 months is too long. Pike, give Ka’hala the coordinates and set course for Tarsus IV.” Roberts sat back down at the comm and the bridge came alive. Chris sent the coordinates to the helm and took a breath. He wasn’t sure quite yet what was eating at him, but something felt eerie about the situation. He shook off the feeling before it could put roots in his mind. Pike left the bridge to get a meal and tried not to think about what was waiting for them on Tarsus.


	2. Chapter 2

April had spent many years in space and many, many days on dangerous missions. Granted, most of them had been based on a bit more information than a half-translated radio transmission on a frequency so out of style that even their lead communications officer was unfamiliar with it. 

Then again, she had also flown more blind before, and it had become something she was comfortable enough with to keep her crew going in the right direction. They were all so young, she thought with a bit of regret. It was not hard for April to assume the worst was happening on this Tarsus planet, but it _was_ hard to reconcile that she would have to expose her crew to it.

She couldn’t worry about it now. It was late, and the lights lining the lower deck hallways were dim as she walked back to her cabin. Starting the beta shift early had given her the opportunity to read through the transmission message a few more times. April would have laughed at how Number One had approached her with the translation earlier, if not for the circumstances, as the communications officer explained all the cipher she had had to slog through to parse out the message. 

It was a rather simple transmission, but it certainly got its point across.

_Fungus took out crops. Kodos killing half the colony. SOS._

April read it again and did everything in her power to push her emotions down. Over four thousand people could be dead on Tarsus IV. If her hair could get any more grey, it would have. Sitting on the edge of her bunk and staring at the ten little words felt like it aged her another 50 years. 

She knew for a fact that sleep would evade her that night. There was too much to be done, so much to plan, and so little information to go off of. Immediately after the transmission was translated out of cipher, April had hailed any nearby starships and spread word of the distress signal. The _Enterprise_ was big, but it was saving-several-thousands-of-people big. Luckily, the _Kogin_ and the USS _Denver_ were on route with them towards the little star system and all three ships would arrive within 24 hours. Captain Roberts could only hope that it was fast enough.

Before she could think about it anymore, Roberts left her cabin and walked towards the medbay. If she couldn’t sleep, then she would work.

The medbay, as she predicted, was bustling. For once, it was not with injuries or refugees, but with preparation. It looked like most of the lower-rank engineers were following the nurses’ directions to push biobeds closer together and to pull temporary bunks out of the walls. An Andorian in the prestigious CMO uniform glared her down, zer hands on zer hips. 

“April, if you’re not here to help, then you’re in the way.” 

Eika, her CMO and best friend, looked angry, stressed, and worried all at once. Ze was a good doctor and a downright terrifying leader. The Andorian would make a great captain but got so frustrated with human anatomy and medical practices that ze dedicated zerself to learning it. It was all for the better for April, of course. She got to keep her best friend close by _and_ get the best doctor in Starfleet at the same time.

“What do you need, Eika?” 

From what she could see, ze was working to maximize the capacity of the medbay. 

“About twice the floor space, if engineering could spare it. Other than that, help me move these beds over.” 

After about half an hour of rearranging the medbay, the two of them ended up dismissing the engineers and most of the nurses. The medbay had gone from a capacity of 10 crewmembers to 50 stranded colonists. They sat together against the far wall of the room, commiserating out of sight of the nurses and ensigns. 

“Stars, I don’t know how we’re gonna pull this off.” Eika curled in on zerself, antennae twitching with agitation.

“We aren’t going to be facing it alone, at least.”

“April, it’s four _thousand_ starving people and a potential four thousand more in various stages of possible injury. Our worst-case situation could still mean over a thousand people in serious medical danger.”

“I guess we’re lucky that the _Kogin_ and _Denver_ are transport ships, then.”

“Can you stop acting so damn hopeful?”

April smiled. “Nope.” 

Eika just sighed. Ze pushed zer white hair behind zer ear idly. “I hope your gut is right about all this. I’ve seen enough innocent dead for a few lifetimes.”

“I think you chose the wrong career, then.” 

It was late, and both of them knew they weren’t going to sleep for a while even though whatever happened in the next 24 would require all their energy and strength. April closed her eyes and leaned her shoulder against Eika. 

“I just hope this ‘Kodos’ is alive enough for me to take him down myself.” 

“And I hope I’m too busy with survivors to watch.,” Eika responded. The ‘if there are survivors’ went unsaid. 

After a while, the two of them retired to the couch in Eika’s office. They didn’t talk, each engrossed in their own personal bureaucracies, but they sat with their sides pressed together, April’s arm over Eika’s shoulders. All they could do was brace themselves, their crew, and the _Enterprise_ as much as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you gotta make an original character and then fall in love with them instantly. thank you eika for my life. 
> 
> comments are loved deeply!! i will respond to as many as i can.


	3. Chapter 3

Come morning, Pike had been officially assigned to the landing party. It wasn’t an assignment he was surprised with, at any rate, but it did put him a bit more on edge. It felt like the few hours of sleep had evaporated, leaving him just as tired and fidgety as the night before.

He took time to prepare. It was an emergency and high-stakes mission, so he gathered any extra supplies he could think of as well as the required basics. In one pocket of the uniform’s belt he put his rather extensive first aid kit and in another he stashed a few ration bars. 

They were now close enough to Tarsus that the science department was able to check for life signs. Chris had his PADD on the bunk, opened to a readout of life forms and statistics. The screen showed around five thousand living colonists but with every few minutes, the number would drop by a few digits. When he had checked it for the first time, the number of lives was five thousand, three hundred, and thirty-seven. The number felt burned into the backs of his eyelids. At that moment, no more than two hours later, forty-one people had died. 

Forty-one people had died because they hadn’t been fast enough. Over two thousand lives had been lost because _they hadn’t been fast enough_.

There was nothing he could do but temper the fire in his gut. The _Enterprise_ would be within transport range in twenty minutes and he had a job to do.

The bridge was busy, just as he had expected. The first officer, Martin Madden, looked as calm as usual despite his position as acting-captain. Roberts was already below deck with the landing party. She was one of their best strategists and, in her own words, worked best with her feet on the ground. Between the two of them, April made leadership look easy. MArtin made leadership look _stylish_.

“Sir. you asked to speak to me?” 

Madden turned towards him, unseeing eyes landing just above his left shoulder. “Yes, is the landing party prepared, Pike?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t been below deck yet.”

“Well, I’ll walk down with you. This seems an important enough mission for a proper send-off.”

Madden’s service dog, Amica, went to stand by his legs as the man stood. Amica, at times, felt just as much like a crew member as anyone else. Pike had not been working there for long, but the idea of the _Enterprise_ bridge without a bit of dog hair on the floor sounded foreign.

The two of them, accompanied by Amica, walked out of the turbolift and towards the transporter room in silence. Neither of them were ever very talkative and it was a nice break from the chatter of the bridge and the nervous thoughts that had plagued Pike all morning.

“I trust you’ll be safe down on that planet, Chris.”

It wasn’t an order or a question; those weren’t in Madden’s nature. 

“I’ll certainly try.”

Madden gave a little ‘hmph’ of acknowledgment and Pike smiled. He and the old man had not known each other for a long time, but Chris knew enough to hear what the other man was trying to say. _Don’t do anything stupid, kid, not when you’re too far away for me to help._

Pike was still smiling when the door to the transporter room opened. Something about the _Enterprise_ felt different than any other ship he had been stationed on. Even after only a few months, his crew felt like family.

“Pike! Took you long enough.” Ka’hala waved him over, smiling. It was strained, just like her happy tone of voice, but it was still good to see her. Everyone waiting to beam down looked stressed, double- and triple-checking their respective supplies and speaking quietly amongst themselves. Captain Roberts had gone to talk to Madden and they were exchanging some business-like conversation before the first officer addressed the room. 

“All of you are part of and ambassadors for the federation. I expect all of you to handle this situation, no matter how daunting or disturbing, with grace and diplomacy. Make your ship proud, and good luck.” With that, Madden gave engineering the go-ahead to transport and left the transporter room, the clicking of Amica’s nails fading as the door closed behind them. 

Captain Roberts herded them all into the chamber and before Pike could take a deep breath, she called for the beam-down.

The air that entered his lungs was full of dust and bitter ash. Above all else, it tasted like death.

Pike and the rest of the landing party took longer than usual to take in the situation. They had beamed down on the outskirts of the capital city and it looked primarily abandoned. The scent of death was coming from several bodies further down the street, all in various stages of decomposition. 

The sky was a dusty grey, glitching blue spiderwebs of the artificial atmosphere appearing every couple seconds like silent lightning. Away from the city center, empty fields stretched into the distance. A few rocky outcroppings interrupted the landscape. There were no people in sight other than the motionless bodies.

“Alright, according to Number One’s calculations, the source of the radio signal is within a quarter mile of our location. Split up and search the buildings. If you find survivors, comm the ship to beam them up. Do not engage or make yourself known to anyone in government uniforms because they are most likely following Kodos’ orders. Stay safe and out of sight.” Captain Roberts gave her order quickly and clearly before the group parted ways. 

Pike and Ka’hala split off of the landing party, heading down the main street towards what appeared to be the center of the settlement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this chapter very strong? no. does it get the job done? yes. stay tuned for chapters where more interesting things happen!  
> comments make me very happy


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: knife mention, murder mention, implied biting/blood
> 
> it's about time we meet the Tarsus Nine, don't you think?

There were people in the town square. They were walking slow, split into several groups. Slow footsteps echoed through the tunnels like the dry dirt was a drum and JT couldn’t help but scowl. 

The town square had been clear of guards for nearly four days and all the kids were beginning to hope that they had abandoned the area entirely. The boots overhead crushed the hope of emerging from the tunnels and each footfall made him feel sick. 

“Jay, what are we gonna do?” Tommy’s voice was hushed even though the guards probably couldn’t hear them. It was an old habit by now, after months of sneaking around just out of sight. 

“Nothing. At least those rodent things are still crawling around everywhere. We’re not gonna starve.” The reassurance was just as much for himself as it was for the kids gathered around him.

“What if they _find_ us?” Casey tugged at his sleeve, her eyes shining with more fear than a child should ever feel. They had all lost their right to innocence months ago, but it still hurt to see.

“They won’t. Kodos is too proud to have those thugs crawling around in the sewers. We’ll be fine, I swear.” 

Casey nodded, but none of the fear drained from her. JT took a moment to glance at all his kids. It was a nervous habit, counting their heads and making sure that they were all still with him. Tommy, the oldest after him, was leaned against the opposite wall of the tunnel sharpening his knife. Hanan, third oldest and freshly eleven years old, and Adeela, 9 years old, were a bit away from them. The sisters were praying in the same direction they always did, hijabs dusty but firmly in place. Kevin was pressed against his left side and Casey against his right, both seven years old. 

Sleeping in a pile near Tommy were the youngest kids in the group, so young that none of them had the firmest grasp on what their ages actually were. Diamond, Suoung, and Eric were probably all four years old, but there was really no way to tell. JT’s life had begun to feel absurdly monotonous for their situation: gathering food and cooking it and taking care of 8 children (even though Tommy and Hanan hated when he called them that).

They all sat in a group against the wall of the tunnel. The cooking fire was down one of the branching tunnels under a grate so that they didn’t smoke themselves out, but they chose the coldest part of the underground to sleep. Tarsus was always too warm, and they had lost a few too many kids to heat stroke to trust warmth.

JT kept his eyes on the ceiling, following the footsteps as they tracked over their hiding spot. The more he listened to them move, the more confused he got. 

They didn’t sound like guards.

It wasn’t much more than a gut feeling for a while, but it slowly became harder and harder to ignore. The footsteps were quieter than they should be. Kodos’ thugs carried weapons and body armor that made their footfalls sound like thunder. They would also follow specific paths around the city where these new people were moving randomly and lightly along the ground. 

It couldn’t hurt to check, he thought, even though he knew it could actually hurt a whole heck of a lot.

He contemplated it for a while, only interrupted by Hanan and Adeela returning to the group. 

“I can take them for a bit, I can tell you’re itching to go scout around.” Hanan looked tired. They all looked tired. 

JT just nodded. The way the girl was glancing at the ceiling whenever the too-light, too-erratic footsteps passed overhead was sign enough that she was confused as well. As gently as he could, he shifted Kev and Casey’s sleep-heavy bodies off of himself and onto Hanan when she sat in his place. “Tommy, you’re in charge.” 

“Oh, I so graciously free you from the nap-prison and you still put _Tommy_ in charge. I see how it is.” 

Tommy squawked out some half-baked retort but JT cut him off. “Alright, Hanan’s in charge. I’ll be back.” 

“ _Hey!_ ” Tommy glared at him mutinously. Hanan just shushed him.

"Be safe, Jay. If you aren't back by sundown the kids'll worry." 

He nodded at her and left the two of them to their hushed bickering, tracing the familiar path to the surface through the tunnels. Over the last few months surviving on Tarsus, his footsteps had grown silent and careful, barely whispering against the damp concrete floor. Despite not reaching the surface yet, he already had a stolen phaser in hand. Killing guards had become one of his least favorite survival strategies, but at least it had less of a bloody aftermath with the phaser than with Tommy’s knife or…

Well, let’s just say he could never seem to get the taste of blood out of his memory. 

He hoped to all the stars that this scouting mission went quietly, that he could identify the people walking without creating more corpses. The stars were cold and uncaring, so far away that he was sure that they couldn’t hear his pleas. It was better that way, probably. The stars were steady and dependable and that was all he asked of them.

The rusty ladder leading out of the tunnels came into view in front of him. Without another idle thought, he reached out and hefted his skinny body up the rungs. Still, he couldn’t quiet the part of him that whispered doubts. One thing was clear; he had a _really_ bad feeling about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case i didn't mention this anywhere else, this series is going to be a three-act story about tarsus and its aftermath, this work is act one and will deal with the entire rescue mission and ensuing chaos on the surface of tarsus iv! 
> 
> side note: i am not muslim, and no research i did really helped me figure out how hanan and adeela would determine the _qibla_ while stranded on a non-earth planet. if you know more about this, please let me know how i can fix it/make it more realistic. thank you!
> 
> comments are appreciated!!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: mentioned bodies/corpses. nothing graphic
> 
> this chapter shifts perspectives a couple times. POV changes are denoted by line spaces and a "..."

Captain Roberts was getting nervous. From what each crewmember was reporting, the only people around were bodies. Sure, they were expecting a lot of death, but there were at least five thousand people still kicking around according to their scans. Tarsus IV was a small planet. If a person walked at an average speed without stopping, they could circumnavigate the entire planet in around two days. 

So, that left Roberts with two very important questions to answer. If she were an evil bastard of a governor, where would she hide thousands of people? On the other hand, if she were a civilian hiding from a madman, where would she hide?

The remaining one thousand colonists slated for execution were most likely hiding out in various barns, caves, and fields elsewhere, but the four thousand ‘safe’ colonists should have been in the city center and the buildings surrounding it. At least, that’s what she had assumed.

Instead, the city looked like a ghost town. 

She was on the top floor of one of the apartment complexes after a few hours of their search. The coppery dust was too thick in the air for scanners to work with much geological accuracy, so they couldn’t pinpoint lifesigns exactly. The colonists, or _most_ of them, at least, were nearby. They were also, apparently, nowhere to be found. Each apartment she checked was abandoned.

The communicator at her belt crackled with static for a moment. “Lieutenant Ka’hala to Captain Roberts.”

“Roberts here. What’s going on, Lieutenant?”

“I’ve gotten reports from the other groups, every residential building has been searched. No survivors have been found.” 

She bit out a curse under her breath. Why couldn’t things be easy for once? “Alright. What structures are left?”

“According to the city schematics, the town hall is carved into a mountain to the west. Other than that, the three warehouses just outside of town have been searched already.” 

“Thank you, Ka’hala.” She switched channels on the communicator, transmitting to each member of the landing party as well as the _Enterprise_ bridge. “Captain Roberts here. There are no colonists in the town, so we will move west to the town hall. Rendezvous at the town square in ten minutes. Roberts out!”

…

Pike sent the captain a short affirmative. He and Ka’hala were in one of the buildings adjacent to the town square, so neither of them were in any hurry. They had split up on the ground level as there was roughly the same amount of floors on the surface as their were in the basement. Ka’hala had worked her way up through the building as he worked his way down, updating each other on each new level just to be safe. He took his time walking back up the staircase, missing the _Enterprise_ turbolift every step of the way. 

Upon reaching the ground level, he decided to check the courtyard behind the apartment complex while he waited for Ka’hala to join him. After nine months of neglect, the only living plants in the garden were two skinny palm trees and some variety of scrub grass that had taken over any hospitable inch of dirt. The remains of some more leafy plants were being slowly broken up and buried by the dust and grass.

The garden, at one point, was probably beautiful. Pike only saw the same brand of depressing wasteland that the rest of the planet appeared to be. Quiet, dusty, and dead.

He walked the circular pathway and glanced around idly. There weren’t any bodies that he could see and there were no structures within the walled-in courtyard that needed exploration. Just as he heard Ka’hala calling for him from the building and he began to turn back, something rooted him to the spot. 

It was a gut feeling, probably, but he had to look around the courtyard again. His eyes swept over the ground and the dead foliage again, this time with razor-sharp focus. 

From a thin patch of grass in the corner of the garden, two wide, bright eyes stared back at him. 

…

JT was frozen. From the moment he had poked his head out of the manhole, he had been paralyzed with his hand still clamped around the top rung of the ladder. The rust was digging painfully into his skin, but he couldn’t move. 

There was a man in the courtyard. 

He wasn’t a guard or a survivor or a colonist. The man was _clean_. His face and hair weren’t smeared with dust, his clothes were intact and absent of rips or patches, and he walked without any sign of injury or fatigue. It all seemed so alien for a moment that he wondered whether or not the Tarsus heat had started giving him hallucinations.

It only got more fantastical when the man turned around. On his chest, he wore a Starfleet badge. JT might have laughed if he wasn’t doing his best impersonation of a deer in the headlights. 

Part of him rejoiced. Part of him celebrated, cheering at the success of the radio transmission that he wasn’t even sure had been sent correctly. The rest of him just stared at the man in disbelief.

Adeela had helped him break into the communications hub of the city months ago and they had set up a radio system together. The girl was young, but she was still the best engineer he knew. They had sent a distress beacon into the sky and programmed it to repeat for as long as the radio had power. After boarding up the radio in the attic of a nearby building, both of them had allowed their hope of rescue dwindle to nothing.

It was easier, he thought at the time. It was easier to give up before being proven wrong. No one was coming for them, but at least they had tried.

Now, staring at the imposing figure of a starfleet officer, the hope he thought he had abandoned burned hot enough that it _hurt_. A few seconds passed by glacially as he tried to decide what to do. The man wasn’t holding his phaser, but making a sudden noise still might have prompted a violent response. If he didn’t alert them to his presence, their one potential ride off Tarsus would be gone forever. The two horrible outcomes battled within him. 

In the end, his decision was made for him. 

The man turned and saw him. Panic coursed through him, but he didn’t move. For the first time since hearing Kodos’ horrible speech, his mind went silent. 

He hadn’t known that hope could feel so much like fear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohohoho let's get into itttt


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no trigger warnings for the chapter! also, sorry that it's a bit short haha.

Pike didn’t move for a few tense moments. He was worried that if he broke his gaze, the kid would disappear back from whence he came. It felt like trying to catch a wild animal, in a way, except he had no idea how to proceed. 

Back home, he used to have to wrangle a few harmless snakes that managed to get into the house, but a starving, traumatized child and a common garter snake were very, very different things. 

At the very least, the kid hadn’t ducked back down into what looked like a sewer entrance, but Pike wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“It’s alright, I’m not here to hurt you.” At the sound of his voice, the kid jerked in place. He didn’t bolt, though, so he decided to push his luck. “My name is Christopher Pike, I’m a pilot on the starship _Enterprise_. What’s your name?”

The eyes staring back at him narrowed. Only the top half of the kid’s face was sticking out of the hole, but his expression looked somewhere between confusion and suspicion. He said nothing. There was a good ten feet of ground between them, but he could tell any amount of distance didn’t matter to the kid as long as he was in Pike’s line of sight. Tactically, that made sense. Almost all of the corpses they had found were killed with gunshot wounds or phaser fire, and no amount of distance really mattered when you were being shot at. 

He reached for his phaser, keeping his hands clearly visible the whole time. “I’m going to get rid of my phaser and then sit down, alright?” 

The kid flinched a little bit, but didn’t bolt. Instead, he gave Pike a nearly imperceptible nod and kept his eyes narrowed. This time, it was very clearly out of suspicion.

Pike unhooked the phaser from his belt and tossed it onto the grass on the other side of the garden. Following through on his promise, he crossed his feet and slowly sat down on the concrete path. Before he could talk to the kid again, whose face had come a few more inches out of the manhole, his communicator pinged.

“Ka’hala to Pike. Chris, where the hell are you?”

He had to reach for the communicator slowly, wary of anything that would spook the child glaring at him. “I’m alright, just give me a minute.”

“Where are you?” 

He had to think about his response for a second. Lying to his friends was typically off the menu, but letting Ka’hala know what was happening could be misinterpreted as Pike calling in the cavalry. “I’m a few floors down, head to the rendezvous without me.”

“Is everything alright? I thought you’d be better with stairs, old man.” 

“Watch it, kid, you’re only allowed to call me that when I’m sixty.” He tried to keep his tone even and amused as usual.

“Whatever. I’ll just wait in the lobby. These couches are surprisingly comfortable for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ka’hala out!”

He took a deep breath. “What’s your name, son?”

The boy’s head and shoulder were out of the manhole and Pike could barely hold back a wince. He was skinny, beat-up, and couldn’t be more than fourteen. “Are you working for Kodos?”

It wasn’t a name, but it was communication. Pike counted it as a win. “No, we’re here to investigate a distress beacon. So far, we’re not really sure what happened here. Can you tell me anything?” He got more narrowed eyes for that. 

“If you got the transmission, then you should have a pretty good idea of what happened.”

Pike was taken aback. The only way this kid could know what the transmission said and that it was a transmission at all was if he had been involved with sending it. “You know about the transmission?”

The boy looked frustrated for a moment. “Fucking _duh_ , I wrote the damn thing.” It was both the most surprising thing the kid could have said and the most like a teenager he had seemed since they locked eyes. After seeing Pike’s face go blank with surprise, the kid lost his nerve and shrank back again.

The surprise he felt broke into a deep sadness. This child had been abandoned and endangered for nine months. The city was shrouded in so much death and hopelessness that Pike was just as impressed that the kid was alive as he was that he had, presumably, built a radio transmitter strong enough to hail a starship all on his own.

His sadness turned to resolve. “Look, kid, you’ve been through enough. I can get you beamed out of here if you don’t want to answer any of my questions. Come with me.”

In the space of a blink, the boy had dropped down into the tunnel. Pike called out to him, but he was gone with barely audible footsteps fading into the subterranean darkness.

“Shit. Ka’hala!” The lobby of the building was close enough that she could hear him. In the meantime, he picked his communicator back up. “Pike to Captain Roberts, I found a survivor.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: chase scene, unreliable narrator, references to (but no graphic description of) violence, fire, and murder.

JT was running and he wasn’t quite sure why. The part of him darting through the sewer and the part of him wondering why felt like they existed on different ends of the galaxy. The last words the man had said felt like it echoed inside of him. _Come with me._

It hadn’t registered as an invitation or an offering. It had felt like an order, like a wedge between himself and the people he protected.

He turned a corner too quickly and skidded to the floor. The cold ground scraped against his side and legs as he scrambled to stand again. He was moving again before he even had his feet fully beneath him. It was the same desperate sprint as the day of Kodos’s speech, as the weeks of near misses and too many losses. 

_Come with me, come with me, come with me._

He couldn’t leave, not on his own. He couldn’t be so selfish as to assure his own safety and doom 8 lives he was responsible for. He would not let some random person steal him away from his _family._

He was running so fast that he nearly stepped on Tommy. 

“What the fuck, JT?” 

“We have to move, now.” Immediately, Tommy and Hanan started to wake or pick up the other children.

Hanan glanced at him while hefting Adeela onto her back. “The guards are back? How many?”

He didn’t know how to answer. Instead, he helped Tommy wake up the toddlers.

“Jay, what’s going on?” Hanan sounded halfway between terrified and exhausted. She grabbed his arm when he didn’t answer for the second time in a row. “ _Jay!_ ”

He didn’t have any words left in him. He felt hollowed out entirely except for the incessant drive to move and run away, carrying his family with him. Before he could figure out how to communicate that, they all heard footsteps from the direction of the ladder. There was no talking after that. 

They had all learned how to make a swift getaway. He got Diamond on his back, grabbed Kevin’s hand, and took off without looking back. Hanan and Tommy had both been able to run before him, each of them tugging along the kids who were too young or unable to run on their own. Casey was lagging behind a bit, so JT pushed Kevin towards her so he could help her along. 

It felt like second nature, at that point, to run. 

Hanan was in the lead, so she was choosing their route. JT remembered the layout of the tunnels and could tell she was heading towards a series of grates that all of them could squeeze through. Adults, especially ones in full armor and carrying weapons, could not fit through the gaps in the bars. 

As soon as he settled into the chase, into the mindset of being prey once more, he stopped seeing the kind face of the man. Instead, the footsteps behind them morphed into the stomping of old military-grade boots. It was an old habit by then to see the guards even when they weren’t there. The guards were nameless, faceless. They burned fields even when the crops were still healthy, they destroyed resources and supplies to drive survivors out into the open. They chased and chased and chased JT and his kids until he couldn’t feel his feet anymore. Once they had all lived in the nightmare long enough, guards and survivors alike, empathy was an easy thing to leave behind. The guards were the gods of the land in all the ways that matter only they did not give life, they only took life away.

There were voices yelling behind them, but it was echoed and distorted enough that JT couldn’t understand the words. From what he could hear, they weren’t putting any distance between themselves and their pursuers, but they also weren’t losing ground. 

As it turned out, the main problem with running away from well-fed, uninjured attackers was not speed, but agility.

Kevin slipped on a loose bit of gravel and fell to the ground. He dragged Casey down with him on accident, and both of them disappeared into the darkness behind him. 

He stopped and turned around so quickly that he nearly fell the same way Kevin did. In less than a second, he had found the two kids on the ground. The boy’s ankle was twisted a bit and Casey was frantic. The footsteps echoing down the tunnel towards them just got louder and louder and Jt…

Well, he was tired. He shoved Diamond onto Casey’s back, set Kevin on his feet, and pushed the three of them down the tunnel as hard as he could without bowling them over. “Go! Follow Hanan!” 

Casey didn’t turn around. She dragged Kevin behind her and held Diamond precariously to her side. She ran and the darkness of the tunnel took her away.

There was something he could do to save them. It was baked into him by Tarsus’s twin suns. Sacrifice. 

He faced towards the echoing, noisy footsteps of the intruders and drew the phaser out of his belt. There must have been more than ten people chasing them, he would never win. He knew deep down that that was alright. Throw a piece of meat to a pack of dogs and they’ll stop chasing their prey. 

There were no more feelings in him, no doubts or fears or pain. It was how he felt after killing guards. He wondered distantly if this was how they felt too, before life left them. In any case, it didn’t matter. 

He breathed in the cold, stinking air of the sewer and waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i REALLY like writing introspection lmao can you tell


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: a little bit of fighting and references to starvation and dissociation, nothing big.
> 
> there are POV switches in this chapter denoted by line spaces and a "..."

Seven seconds.

It took them seven seconds to close in on him. Each moment of it was spent standing motionless in the dark. 

Six seconds.

Five, four, three…

JT crouched, folding himself into a small alcove of the wall like a coiled spring. Down the tunnel, he could see the shine of a flashlight. Hopefully the alcove was enough to hide him from the light

He knew that starvation and poor conditions had weakened him, but he was still wicked fast when he wanted to be. So, when the footsteps got close enough to taste and he finally, _finally_ saw movement in the darkness, it wasn’t even close to a fair fight.

…

Ka’hala had barely had time to call for back-up before Pike dragged her into a mad dash through the sewers. The man was just on the functional side of frantic when she found him in the courtyard, but she didn’t think it would result in this impromptu mission. 

In any case, she was currently pursuing, presumably, a bunch of emaciated children who were too traumatized to trust being rescued. It felt awful and wrong, but not enough to stop. The only thing that would feel worse than chasing down the survivors would be leaving them to starve in a sewer tunnel.

They ran in a unit. She was in the lead with a history of track and field training under her belt, but Pike and the four crew that joined them were not far behind. She held her light out ahead of them, but it was eaten up by the oppressive subterranean darkness. 

Still, Ka’hala scanned every new inch of the tunnel revealed to her. After a minute or two of running, she could hear a child-like voice out in front of them. It just pushed her forward and had Pike yelling ahead of them again. 

After so long of running and searching for children that refused to be spotted or captured, she wasn’t expecting to be surprised. 

There was a blur out of the corner of her eye, something coming at her so quickly and so unexpectedly that she couldn’t hold back a scream. 

...

A yell bounced around the tunnel walls so loudly it felt like an earthquake. JT wasn’t sure if it was the person he tackled that screamed or someone else. It didn’t matter, all that mattered was making enough of a mess to slow them down, to give Hanan enough time to get everyone to safety. There was barely enough light to see, but he counted six attackers. 

It was a blurry fight, not much different than any other he had been in. He managed to throw a few punches with his free hand and fire enough phaser blasts into the ceiling to cause a proper amount of chaos before his arms were pinned behind him. 

“Dammit, kid, stop squirming!” 

He snarled and squirmed twice as hard. 

“ _Enterprise_! Ka’hala to _Enterprise_! Two to beam up, now!” Everyone around them backed off, leaving just him and the person holding him. He yelled words he didn’t have time to think about and thrashed, but the air around them lit up white. Reality seemed to swirl around him.

He shut his eyes against the light and the dizziness. He just hoped that he had bought his kids enough time. 

…

A few years back, Eika had watched an engineering ensign accidentally beam up around two dozen pissed-off aliens that looked like a cross between Andorian crows and snails. They had wreaked havoc on the ship for several hours and gave zer an annoying number of patients with bruised egos and infected scratches. 

The chaos in the transporter room at the moment of the aliens’ arrival had looked very similar to the current moment, if a little bit less pathetic and sad. 

The boy currently wrestling with Lieutenant Ka’hala Hale on the transport deck was beyond scrawny and looked very, very tired. When they had been beamed up, he was curled up very small under the pilot’s arm. However, upon opening his eyes and finding himself in an unfamiliar setting had set him on a warpath. 

“Alright, alright. That’s enough!” Eika stepped up onto the platform and peeled the child off of Hale. Ze picked him up under his arms like a kitten and he immediately kicked zer in the chest with considerable force. “I’m an Andorian, kid, it’ll take a lot more than that to hurt me.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t fucking _try!_ ” He kicked zer again with just a bit more spirit behind it. Ze couldn’t help but smile at his determination.

“Knock yourself out. In the meantime, we’re gonna get you fixed up, alright?” 

Panic flooded his expression. As it turned out, the kid was slippery. He grabbed and twisted zer thumb, forcing zer to drop him. He hit the ground hard, but was able to scramble away before ze could grab onto him again. 

The transporter room was in disarray for several long, long moments. The nurses and doctors Eika had brought with zer scattered, each of them trying not to hurt or scare the kid while also trying to get that little weasel to _sit still_. 

It was Ka’hala, eventually, who managed to get him safely pinned. She sat against the wall holding him with his back against her chest and her arms wrapped firmly around his arms and torso. “It’s okay, kid, it’s alright. Just breathe, we’re trying to help you!”

The boy wasn’t listening. The moment he realized that he was trapped, he stopped squirming and went deathly still. Eika sat next to Ka’hala, suddenly very wary of making the kid feel trapped. Or, well, more trapped than he already was at any rate.

The transporter room calmed down as the reality of the situation sank in. 

Their new rescue wasn’t squirming or arguing or kicking anymore. All he did was lean against Ka’hala with dead eyes staring forward. He was dissociating, probably, and so tired that it made zer feel exhausted just looking at him. The pilot kept repeating comforting words and loosened her grip a little bit. The boy slumped against her, but he wasn’t asleep. Eika doubted he would be able to for a long time. 

Eika sighed. Ze had a lot of work ahead of zer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're halfway through this first act! i hope you're liking it so far haha. the next chapter will likely have pretty vivid description of panic attacks and dissociation! be warned.
> 
> i might let a bit too much of my love for eika peek through in my writing but yknow?? it's what ze deserves.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and leave kudos for more! this will be a bit of a long-haul project but i have the entire plot written out so the only job to do now is to write it. thanks for reading!


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